I fed him pudding. I ran upstairs to get something. I got distracted by a book. When I came back, Daniel had finished eating and moved onto nap. Wow, Daniel.

Daniel, age 6 months, napping on my friend Sherry, during Alan’s promotion ceremony

There are many things my beautiful little boys do well. Yes, I am sorry. I said beautiful.  They are!! Handsome, if it makes you feel better, but my goodness, they look like sleeping angels to me.

This is one of the things we do with FLARE. That’s right. We NAP. We are seriously great nappers. I remember one time, in Sunday school, our class was debating rest on Sundays. Who would debate that? Seriously. Don’t just agree to rest, embrace it, love it, protect it. The people need their naps!!!

All children look even sweeter when they are asleep, don’t you think? My blogging pal Slyvia at Tales from the Mommy Trenches had this post of  her babies sleeping on their daddy, and I thought it was SO adorable. I knew I had to copy cat, but when I went through recent photos, I found most of our pictures are of our children sleeping in the floor, soooooo…

I put together this little napping slideshow for ya. I hope you all get at least one day off a week, to just do this!

 Not one sleeping babe, but two. It doesn’t get any sweeter than this.

 Gotta love the nursing induced coma–a powerful bedtime ritual!

 Caleb sleeping on his Mama 🙂

Caleb sleeping on his daddy…or wait, no, Daddy is doing the sleeping!

 We sleep in the car.

They even sleep in their beds, without us even asking them to. I used to find Caleb sleeping in Joshua’s bed.

Caleb, sleeping in his own bed, with his Daddy doll, when Alan was in Afghanistan.

 They even trust each other. That’s newborn Dan, sleeping on three-and a half year-old Caleb.

 serious rump-in-the-air-sleep
 Caleb, 6 months, passed out on the couch, on Christmas day

I used to have to wake Daniel up from his nap every day at 2:30, to go get the boys from school. I put his gloves and jacket on him, in his sleep, and carried him out to the stroller.

passed out in a room full of kids

I’m going to slide down and go play, wait noooo, nooo, I’m just gonna zzzzzz.

Daniel seemed to prefer dropping down and sleeping in the living room floor.

just plain exhausted

But if I said the words, “nap time,” he’d run and hide in Daddy’s closet.

. ….ah, the ever peaceful Ergo nap.

We wish you all a restful day and a wonderful week!

The post Will Nap Anywhere appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

best thing that happened this week!!!! Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Sometimes I get stressed out.  Like now.  I’m kind of on the verge of that right this second.

Here’s why my face is all broken out like a teenager this week!

It’s Friday at 2pm.  The whole weekend is about to smack us in the face, and it’s not one of those nice, breezy weekends.  It’s one of those crazy-insanely busy-hallmark weekends  that make me want to stick my head in the sand.

For starters, we promised a friend we’d go somewhere tonight that’s an hour away that starts at 7pm.  We have four small children, and our babysitters don’t do Friday nights.  I’m scrambling around trying to fix this.  I’m thinking I should take a friend and leave Alan at home with all of our children.  I never get out, and Alan is out at least a little more than I am, so he’ll probably enjoy time at home.  I know he wants to go to this thing, though.

Do you want to know what the ‘thing’ I’m anxious about going to with sleepy children is???  It’s a buffet of DELICIOUS food, cooked by chefs who are graduating culinary school.  We have a friend that’s one of the graduates.  You can see why both Alan and I wanted to go!

If you want to go with me, I do need a ‘date’…..FEMALE, a female one.  Thanks!

Okay….before I go any further, I should mention that this has actually been a fun week.  How lucky am I that Daniel passes out in the floor?  Thank you, sweetie, Mommy loves you.  Don’t worry.  I didn’t give him Benadryl or anything.  No, I really didn’t.

All right.  Back to my stress.

They say it’s going to snow Tuesday, which I KNEW this wasn’t finished yet, but what can you do?

Saturday.  Oh, Saturday.  Guess what Saturday is.  It’s when we celebrate Daniel’s birthday, since Saturday is a weekend and all.  Guess what I have planned for his glorious 3rd birthday!?

Nothing.

Not even a cake.  Not even a friend.  I got nothin’.

I’ve just been too busy and tired to deal with it.  Alan was gone for a couple of days this week (business trip), so I’ve been doing the 1:4 ratio thing.

Did you read that last sentence? 1:4 ratio.  Are any words really necessary?

Our tentative plan is to take Daniel into the city to the Smithsonians Saturday.  Which is GREAT, and he will love it, only that will leave me no time to prepare for……..

GUESTS ARRIVING ON SUNDAY MORNING!!!!!  We LOVE hosting, so we regularly invite our friends and family to come stay with us and take advantage of the local touring opportunities.  Next week begins tourist season, and I believe our little bed and breakfast here at the House of Many Little Men is booked almost solid for the rest of March and April.

Now don’t worry TOO much for me.  I’ve done this a TON, and these guests are all related to us:  Donna, Ellen, and Matthew.  This will be Ellen and Matthew’s first visit.  Wahooo!!!  The boys are so excited about Matthew coming–who is 17.  Apparently, “he’s the one that drives them on the golf cart at their great-grandparents’ house.” They trust his driving, but they don’t trust Laura Ellen’s.  HA!!

Classic men, judging women drivers.

I’m no fool, ya’ll.  I had a maid come and clean yesterday.  That’s right.  My pride is more important than money.

I’m just concerned about getting everything else nice and ready for my guests in time.  The mirror in the guest room broke a couple weeks ago, and rule #1 of hosting–Always provide a mirror in the guest room.

What?  You don’t think that should be rule #1?  Perhaps not everyone has to stare at every mirror they walk by like I do, rotten, vain thing that I am, but I still say it’s important.

Can you feel my blood pressure rising?  At least we did buy Dan a gift!!

Oh!  And thank you so much, everyone who sent him a gift already:  both sets of uncles and aunts and my parents!!  He LOVED it all!!!  I wanted to have photos of him playing with all of his gifts all uploaded and labeled on the blog today, but I’m having some iPhoto issues.  Drat.

Check back with me soon.  I have BEAUTIFUL photos of snow covered trees and darling pictures of Joshua’s art work, but alas, I Photo issues.

Now I’m officially running late to pick the boys up from school, so I’m out of here!  TGIF…..actually I could use one more Friday to prepare for this one!

The post Aaaaaaaaughhhhh!!!!! appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Today a very bad, bad, bad thing happened.

(And for the sake of anyone new to reading my blog, you should know that I like to whine about my petty problems, as though they are actual problems.  Sometimes I just do this for dramatic effect….  ; )

In the world of raising toddlers or babies, your worst nightmare is a bad napper.  I’ve never had a bad napper on a regular basis, thank God!  I guess he knows I could never handle it.  I take that back.  Caleb was a bad napper of a newborn, but he blossomed into the best napper of all, eventually.

Naps are your sanity line as a mother.  They are the difference between keeping your joy and crying, whining, and swearing under your breath.  I mean, honestly, just telling you the truth.

So……today was the very first day in Daniel’s two years of life that he DID NOT TAKE A NAP.  Horrors!  By the end of the day, I don’t even want to talk about it..

This happened because today is Monday!  Mondays are bad.

We have this thing here called “half day school” on Monday.  It probably messes up everyone’s day to some extent, but as a baby/toddler mother it is five times worse because, um hellooo, 12:20 is smack dab in the middle of nap time.

Long story short:

Today he wasn’t really tired before 12, and he couldn’t fall asleep in his stroller b/c it was too cold outside. Therefore, he became over-tired, another very, very, very BAD thing, and couldn’t fall asleep at all.  Even at 7:30 bedtime, he couldn’t fall asleep.

Alan ended up rocking him to sleep.

That’s one thing people don’t warn you about with small children. Beware the over-tired!!!

  Okay my ranting and raving is over.  A couple more things to note…..

SaveSave

The post When Toddlers Miss their Nap Time appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.